Musings of an Australian living, travelling and crafting in Papua New Guinea

Odds and ends

It’s a small 4WD. It’s also an automatic as that is one less thing for me to worry about when driving. Having a 4WD is pretty much essential given the state of the roads in Port Moresby. This picture is taken in front of our temporary accommodation (which we are still in…).

I drove for the first time yesterday. Gorgeous Man was, thankfully, in the passenger seat. The traffic is pretty wild and the roads are not in the best condition. Recent rains have washed both lanes of the main highway away and caused large pot holes in many of the other smaller roads. Our trip home from shopping took over 2 hours (for what should be a 25 minute journey) and involved police directing traffic. The car behind me got friendly with his horn when I complied with the Nice Mr Policeman’s direction to stop and let traffic through. Given that Nice Mr Policeman was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, I was quite happy to let the car behind me honk as much as they wanted to…

The worst part of the trip was after it got dark, because it’s very hard to see people walking on the road, there are cars with no headlights and of course it’s hard to see the condition of the road as well. But we made it home safely.

I’m going to have to get used to driving on my own, as Gorgeous Girl starts pre-school on Monday – there is only two weeks of term left, but she is desperate to get to school again. She has been very good about amusing herself. She spent a very happy morning making a cubby for herself in one of our suitcases.

Speaking of suitcases, if you have (say for example) 178 kilos of luggage that you wish to take on a plane with you when you are moving to a new country (that is just the checked baggage), it is much cheaper to buy your excess baggage in advance than to just turn up on the day. It will take 2 phone calls and at least 2 hours to accomplish this. Also expect to take at least 45 minutes for check in (that is just time at the counter).

Before we left South Africa I knitted a comfort shawl for a friend. Finally managed to get the photos from camera to computer.

While in Australia I kept seeing a hand-piecing block of the month club advertised in the various quilting magazines and was umming and ahhing over whether to get it. Then I went to see my friend Lisa. (Lisa is the person who started me on my quilting journey by helping me make a cushion cover (my first project) and then sending me home with her spare machine and a pile of Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazines.)

Well, Lisa the enabler struck again. She had the pattern from the block of the month club and let me sew a few blocks. I was hooked. I rang the company and asked if they had any of the kits left and if they would sell me the entire block of the month kit at once. I have to give a shout out to Quilt Fabrics Delight she was out of stock of the fabric range I was after, but once she heard I was leaving for PNG any day she had it express posted to her so she could make a kit up for me. I ordered on a Monday and had the kit by Thursday (I did pay to have the kit express posted to me in Brisbane, but the turn around time was impressive).

I’ve done about 30 blocks so far. Here’s a sample of a few of them.

They are lots of fun to make, quite addictive really. You can find out more information here.